This invention relates to a portable communication device, such as a cellular phone, a portable digital assistance (PDA) device, and, in particular, to the cellular phone which can transmit or receive a voice signal through a radio channel.
Heretofore, a wide variety of cellular phones have been manufactured and sold which may be classified into comparatively old-fashioned cellular phones and modern ones. The old-fashioned cellular phones have only a function of talking to another subscriber or a called person in a voice through a radio channel and, in this connection, may register phone or directory numbers of called person or persons alone in a memory.
On the other hand, modern cellular phones can usually have personal e-mail addresses and can practically transfer e-mails by the use of the mail addresses when users make contracts with service providers. Under the circumstances, each modern cellular phone can generally register not only directory numbers but also e-mail addresses assigned to each user and called persons in its memory. In consequence, an amount of data registered in each cellular phone tends to increase more and more with time.
As to such a technology related to a cellular phone, disclosure has been made, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications (JP-A) Nos. Hei 6-205096 (namely, 205096/1994; Reference 1), Hei 7-15549 (namely, 15549/1995; Reference 2), Hei 10-326397 (namely, 326397/1998; Reference 3), Hei 11-46163 (namely, 46163/1999; Reference 4), and 2000-165574 (Reference 5). Herein, References 1 through 5 are titled “A telephone set having a function of automatically registering a directory number”, “A communication terminal”, “An emergency telephone device with a function of memorizing a reporting history”,“A digital cellular phone device”, and “A facsimile device having a message recording function executed by directory number information”, respectively.
However, a teaching of each of References 1 to 5 is made neither about a cellular phone nor about registering both a directory number and e-mail address in the cellular phone. For example, although Reference 4 discloses a cellular digital phone which enables data communication in the absence of a voice signal, consideration is given neither to registering received directory numbers nor to registering e-mail addresses.
Under the circumstances, when a directory number is received from the other party by a cellular phone through the use of a calling line identification presentation service, the cellular phone requires manual operation so as to register or input the directory number each time on reception of the directory number.
On the other hand, when e-mail is received from the other party by such a cellular phone, the e-mail address of the other party is generally attached to the received e-mail. Therefore, it is possible to register a received e-mail address at the user's cellular phone once the e-mail is received from the other party. However, a user of the cellular phone must carry out a manual operation so as to register the other party's e-mail address.
In addition, it is a recent trend that each user has a plurality of directory numbers and a plurality of e-mail addresses as cellular phones and the Internet become popular. However, no consideration at all is given to registering the plurality of directory numbers and e-mail addresses in the cellular phone. This applies to a portable digital assistance (PDA) device also.